Setting up a contact center with SmartAssist involves several careful and precise steps for seamless operations. This guide helps set up SmartAssist in your organization for the first time.

SmartAssist setup involves the following essential steps:

1. Decide the Setup
2. Sign up for SmartAssist
3. Configure Routing
4. Set up Customer Experiences
5. Test Your Setup
6. Deploy SmartAssist

Step 1: Decide the Setup

Start by deciding your setup requirements, which can be adjusted later if needed. This step lays the foundation for your initial SmartAssist configuration.

To align with your organization’s needs and make informed decisions, address the following questions:

1. What type of channels are required?
   1. Voice,
   2. Chat,
   3. E-mail.
2. Will the agents be set up in SmartAssist or redirected to a different system?
3. What kind of experience has to be built if you choose a voice channel? 
   1. Conversational: Is there an existing bot, or does a bot have to be built from scratch (on the Kore.ai XO Platform)?
   2. IVR: Is an existing flow available, or does a flow have to be created from scratch?
4. If the Digital channel (chat and email) is selected, is there an existing bot on the XO Platform? 

Step 2: Sign up for SmartAssist

The SmartAssist onboarding journey starts with Signing up for SmartAssist. SmartAssist login needs to be unique on the Kore.ai platform. The XO Platform automatically creates a workspace using the login you signed up with. Visit the SmartAssist login page to continue with the sign-up. 

Step 3: Configure Routing

The next step is to configure routing and related properties.

Depending on the answer to question number 2 in the previous step, you must set up agents in SmartAssist or on a different platform. 

To set up agents in SmartAssist:

1. Agents – Invite any agents that participate in the activities coordinated via SmartAssist. Learn more.
2. Queues – Set up queues as needed. You can customize your queues or use the default, prebuilt into SmartAssist. Learn more.
   1. Skills setup [optional] – Configure the skills that your agents possess so that you can route requests to the appropriate agents when needed. SmartAssist has a default skill that is added once a user signs up. Learn more.
   2. Hours of operation [optional] – SmartAssist comes with default hours of operation, which can be customized according to your needs, or you can add your configuration. Learn more.
3. Agent statuses: This allows you to decide the statuses that agents can later choose while working within SmartAssist. For example, Available, Offline, Busy, etc.

To set up agents in an external platform: 

1. Set up agents in the target platform.
2. Configure the agent transfer settings in SmartAssist under Configuration > System Setup > Agent Transfer. Learn more.

Step 4: Set up Customer Experiences

SmartAssist admins can start defining the end customer experience using a combination of Use Cases, Experience Flows, and Waiting Experiences, as follows:

Step 4.1: Import a Bot to SmartAssist/Create a New Bot

1. Existing XO Platform customers can link their bots to SmartAssist.
2. When you sign up for a SmartAssist account, an account is automatically created for you on the Platform. Through the Automations tab in SmartAssist, you can create bots. The XO Platform Documentation guides designing, training, and deploying your bots. Learn more.

Step 4.2: Configure Use Cases

You can configure the use cases that require defining customer experiences. For example, you can create Q&As or standard responses for FAQs or tailor Agent Transfer or deflection flows for calls and chats. Learn more.

Step 4.3: Define an Experience Flow

SmartAssist’s flow builder creates experience flows. You can attach an experience flow to a channel and initiate the design of customer experiences using individual steps within the flow builder.

The Experience Flow Builder functions as a drag-and-drop work surface, allowing you to connect blocks of actions or nodes. For instance, upon a customer’s initial entry into your contact center, you can prompt for input and then play a greeting like “Welcome to ABC Corp, how may I assist you today?” Learn more.

Step 4.4: Define Behavior

Customizing messages for standard scenarios, such as customer welcome and goodbye messaging, is possible. For instance, you can set the welcome message that a customer hears and define actions to be taken when a customer is non-responsive, among other settings. Learn more.

Step 4.5: Configure Waiting Experiences

You can configure the customer’s experience when they wait to speak with an agent. This includes setting up waiting rules and customizing each channel by adding initial messages, periodic messages, hold audio, chat deflection, or callback options. Learn more.

Step 5: Test Your Setup

Testing allows you to verify and validate the customer experiences that you’ve created on SmartAssist by providing a preview or simulation within our testing environment. Learn more.

Step 6: Deploy SmartAssist

After finishing the experience flow design and testing, you can publish the entire setup for the go-live phase. Learn more.

Related Link

• Sign Up for SmartAssist